China will display several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at an
air show this month, and many of them look like the U.S. aircraft
being used against targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and
Somalia.

McDonald reports that the CH-4 and the Wing Loong, or
Pterodactyl, models appear to be clones of the American Reaper
and Predator drones while the larger Xianglong, or Soaring Dragon
— a long-range, high-altitude model — resembles the RQ-4 Global
Hawk.

“As the Americans say, the U.A.V. is fit for missions
that are dirty, dangerous and dull," Huang Wei, the
director of the CH-4 program at the China Aerospace Science and
Technology Corporation, told the
state-run newspaper Global Times.

"The military significance of China’s move into unmanned
systems is alarming. The country has a great deal of
technology, seemingly unlimited resources and clearly is
leveraging all available information on Western unmanned systems
development. China might easily match or
outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the
technology gaps and become a
formidable global competitor in unmanned systems."

The DoD report even mentions theAnjian, or
the Dark Sword, which is a drone that “represents the
aspirations of the Chinese to design something even the
Western powers don’t have — a supersonic drone capable
of air-to-air combat as well as ground strikes.”

In terms of a potential U.S. response, McDonald cites
an article by
Scott Shane that explains the hypocrisy if the U.S. tries to
temper drone use in the international community while itpre-emptively
kills people around the globe.

If China, for instance, sends killer drones into Kazakhstan
to hunt minority Uighur Muslims it accuses of plotting terrorism,
what will the United States say? What if India uses remotely
controlled craft to hit terrorism suspects in Kashmir, or Russia
sends drones after militants in the Caucasus? American
officials who protest will likely find their own example thrown
back at them.